NY Times = Junk

The New York Times Co. reported a steep drop in third-quarter profits on Thursday, the latest gloomy earnings report in an industry battered by online competition and falling print advertising revenue.

The New York Times Co. said net profit fell by 51.4 percent in the third quarter to 6.5 million dollars, or five cents per share, from 13.4 million dollars, or nine cents per share, in the same period a year ago. …

Shortly after the release of its results, Standard & Poors said it was lowering the Times’s credit rating to “BB-,” or junk status, while Moody’s Investors Service said it was placing it on review for possible downgrade.

Moody’s changed the rating outlook for the company to negative from stable in July. A further downgrade would reduce it to junk status.

It’s been said that the entire value of the New York Times Company is represented by its building in Manhattan–that the twenty or so papers the company owns, including the New York Times and the Boston Globe, have zero value. I’m not sure whether that’s right, but if it is, Power Line is worth more than the New York Times–financially, as well as intellectually. We don’t make much money, but we’re in the black.